Welat Ramin Azad

I believe this is the first time that an author from the southern part of Kurdistan has ever written a novel about the Northern part of Kurdistan. This is the beginning of a new route in Kurdish literature; breaking down the insight of being torn into pieces and creating a national perspective. This phenomenon will become a tradition all over the country in the future: a writer from Amed will write a novel about Ilam, a writer from Sna will write a novel about Samsour, a writer from Chawlgi will write about Kobane and a writer from Koya will write about Dersim.

There are several direct and practical aspects to the novel "Capturing the Darkness" by Baxtiyar Ali. Some of these aspects will be discussed in this commentary.

The novel is written in a historical genre and the technique of Magical Realism has been applied, the author has manipulated the reality through this technique. The events happened mostly from 1945 to 1980 in the Northern part of Kurdistan and Turkey. During this history, Baxtiyar Ali faces a hot debate that has spread among the Turks; a Turkish fascist wakes up one morning and finds out that he has forgotten Turkish and only can speak Kurdish. Like this Turkish fascist, a lot of other people who identify themselves as Turks wake up one morning and see that they are Armenian or Greek. The novel is written based on this tragic-comedy genre and it is an intellectual and dialectic subject.

A part of the novel begins from 1945 and another part of it is from 1978; the reader lives in two different periods of time, so they can judge the two eras' problems, and think about the results and changes that happened during these eras.

Colonialism has been symbolized as darkness. How do the colonialists live in the colony, what do they do, how do they deal with others, how do they feel about the colonials, and … the answer to these questions lies in the novel.

Baxtiyar Ali has influenced the Northern part of Kurdistan people deeply and has challenged them in his novel, Capturing the Darkness. This topic is proved in the novel: "The greatest genocide of the Kurds did not happen in Dersim or Agri, but rather in Istanbul." Baxtiyar Ali shows what a great form of pressure, oppression, and assimilation is forced on us as Kurds, what form of cruelty and violence we have to face as a result of colonialism, what kind of conversion happens in our lives and how they give up their fear of the Turkish government.

"I went to Amad, and nobody spoke in Kurdish." We hear this sentence from most of the people from the South, West, and East parts of Kurdistan. Baxtiyar Ali answers this question in his novel as to why the people of the northern part of Kurdistan do not speak Kurdish. He clarifies how this phenomenon has formed as a result of dialectic, determinism, and assimilation. It was necessary for the writers from the northern part of Kurdistan to answer this question in their works.

Baxtiyar Ali has lightened up the Turks, being a Turk, Turkish government, and Kemalism with his novel. The main characters of the novel are Turks. Obviously, Baxtiyar Ali knows his nation very well. This novel also shows that he knows Turks very well.

In this novel, we see the result of the Turkish government and Kemalist actions as a system full of corruption and violence, Schizophrenia, oppression, madness, social Darwinism, torture, harassment, blocking the mind and logic, fascism, imprisonment, hate, and …

Baxtiyar Ali's bravery is totally obvious. In a subjective way, without any censorship or self-censoring, without any fear or doubt, he penetrates the Turkish government, Kemalism, and being a Turk with his novel. With this novel, he declares: "The king is naked".

Interestingly, we as Kurds living in the Northern part of Kurdistan, are not able to think about Turks, Tuskism, and Kemalism freely in our minds. The Turkish government's fear is rooted deeply in our souls; thus, we cannot even establish epistemology. This novel is written so that the oppressed bravery of the people of the Northern part of Kurdistan would be restored.

In this novel, there is an attempt to clean up and liberation amidst the corruption and darkness. Adorno says: "Wrong life cannot be lived rightly." In the novel Capturing the Darkness, Baxtiyar Ali questions the right life within the wrong one. Since then, it has become an international novel and has participated in most of the ontological and philosophical discussions. Answering Adorno, Baxtiyar Ali also says in his novel that "there is a place within humans that darkness cannot capture."

Colonialism is completely an anti-rightness show. The novel Capturing the Darkness is an attempt to revolt against the truth's defeat. Baxtiyar Ali, with the weapon of art and literature, stops colonialism from succession and the defeat of truth forever, he does not let the good and lightness be defeated.

He does not let the attempts to erase the Kurdish language succeed. "Capturing the darkness" is an attempt to avenge the Kurdish language against its deterioration (Kurmanji and Zazaki dialects).

Capturing the darkness is a kind of revolution and changing many things in the Northern part of Kurdistan literature and society. In order to know this novel, we need to study and investigate it.